Preamble
OK, you get a good look at the map? Wonderful! Here's what you need to know about the world before writing your character's bios: *2997 years ago Sotra was inhabited solely by the Orcs and other low races. During an event called The Scism, the high races (Human, Dwarf, Gnome, and Elf) were cast out of paradise and forced to co-habitate with the lows. Immediately following Land Fall, the Orcs enslaved the highs, and so it was for generations. *Over time, the Orcs grew indolent and complacent, their entire infrastructure and economy based on slavery. They allowed the high races to breed unchecked, and eventually they outnumbered the Orcs by a wide margin. *The slaves rebelled and began a century long period of almost constant warfare that nearly eradicated the Orcs. *The few remaining Orcs took refuge in the swamps, rain forests and high mountains of the southern continent. * 843 ALF (After Land Fall) marked the final year of the Slave Revolt. *With their new-found freedom, and the Orcish threat contained, the high races began fighting with one another over dominion of the Northlands. Eventually, hostilities ended, borders were drawn, and a tenuous, though long-lasting peace ensued. *As the years rolled on, the races, seemingly driven by some deep compulsion, separated from one another and settled the land in their own way. The Dwarves carved their homes deep into the mountains and underground, becoming renowned for the talent of their smiths and inexhaustible greed; the Elves migrated to the forests, building their settlements high in the tree tops, at perfect equilibrium with nature, and easily able to look down upon the other races; the Humans, ever industrious, spread far and wide, taking to the plains and hills and shores, sure to be found wherever profit was to be made; and finally, the Gnomes, occupy all the spaces in between, never stationary, always on the move in their great caravans. *2974 ALF the Giants invade, easily toppling every government and standing army in Sotra. Almost overnight they establish puppet governments which closely resemble the ones they replaced, but with one exception: a slave mandate. The Giants seem largely uninterested in people's affairs, just so long as the supply of free labour continues unabated. The interred thousands are funnelled into the Ardun Desert, where they toil in mining dark stone, which is in turn shipped off to an unknown location for reasons no one is entirely sure of. Many die in the process. * The Dwarves, for the time being, remain safe, sequestered in their mountain homes. Some of the more adventurous Dwarves, however, view this as cowardly. The Giants, for their part, seem uninterested with the Dwarves, for now... *2997 ALF — Current Year So that's about all you need to know. And please, don't feel as though you have to create a character beholden to the tropes above, you can really go in any direction you want. Once you're ready to post your character bio and junk, just create a new page and link it to your character's name which you should put in parentheses next to your actual name under the Player Character heading.